SESAME STREET _ Smart Cookies

SMART COOKIES will be a new recurring segment on Season 46 of SESAME STREET (the one premiering on HBO in January).

The segments star Cookie Monster as the rookie agent of a team of crime-fighting cookies called "Smart Cookies." His teammates include leader Chipowski, tech-guy Figby and clue-giver Miss Fortune. In each segment, Cookie Monster learns about self-control and regulation as the team thwarts the dastardly attacks of a villain known simply as "The Crumb."

Here's a preview episode on Sesame's YouTube page:

As with other Sesame segments like SUPER GROVER 2.0, ELMO THE MUSICAL, and COOKIE'S CRUMBY PICTURES, the Muppets are shot on green screen and it's the privilege of the artists and animators at Magnetic Dreams Studio in Nashville to create and integrate the world around them.

I thought I'd use this post to share some development art and to credit the team involved.

As an educational parody of an action adventure cop show, we first explored the possibility of doing 2D illustrated backgrounds like the ones below (by me with layouts by Creative Director Rickey Boyd).

Ultimately, Sesame asked us to build a world from baked goods and packaging that complimented Cookie's "fish out of water" position on the team. Below you can see some stills of the day and night versions of the city exterior featured in the open. All assembly and renders by Tim Crowson.

(my Photoshop style frame reference for city asset CG modeling)

(unsurfaced CG models)

(Ext City Day 01)

(Ext City Night 01)

(Ext City Night 01, with final color correction and compositing)

The Smart Cookies drive around in a tactical vehicle that I always imagined as a cross between a cookie jar and the A-Team van. Modeling by Brad Applebaum, surfacing by Stephanie Goldstein and Tim Crowson based on my design. Will there be a toy? (I hope there's a toy) Also fun incorporating kitchen details into the interior consoles.

Lastly, a look at the classy gallery interior of the preview episode. We're just about finished with all of season one and have created our full share of corrugated cardboard and piped icing.

I love working with this Magnetic team and so much talent and ingenuity went into developing the look for this show. Here's a rundown of those involved:

Executive Producer - Mike Halsey

Producer - Randy Saba

Creative Director - Rickey Boyd

VFX Supervisor - Julian Herrera

Storyboard Artists - Benjamin Fosselman, Kimberly Cranfield

Concept Designer - Kimberly Cranfield

CG Modelers/Assembly Artists - Tim Crowson, Brad Applebaum, Stephanie Miranda Goldstein, Wenie Rahardja, Don Culwell, Andrew Trout, Meghan Connor

Dynamics - Wenie Rahardja

Compositors - Rhea Borzak, Josh Stafford, Judd Eschliman, Abdel Pizarro, Joel Robertson

Rigging - Steven Alley

Animators - James Coakley, Richard Aldridge, Abdel Pizarro

The Money Lady - Lisa Halsey

The Computer Guy - James Ramsden

SESAME STREET _ The Cookie Thief

The Museum of Modern Cookie Art (MoMCA?) made its debut on a recent special episode of Sesame Street, "The Cookie Thief." A closed door whodunnit, the show features a self-regulating Cookie Monster who is falsely accused as the titular art thief by the museum guard, guest-star Rachel Dratch.

             

Magnetic Dreams Studio provided CG set extensions and exterior of the new location as well as historical art studios of some master painters (by Stephanie Goldstein and Brad Applebaum). More than that, the special afforded us the opportunity to paint cookie-themed Muppet parodies of classic artwork. They were all painted digitally (with the extremely responsive brushes by Kyle T. Webster) and then printed, framed, and hung in the set. What an incredible way to collaborate with the stellar Sesame crew. You can see my "Cookie Night" and "Girl with a Cookie Earring" paintings as they were hung, below. Note: It's humbling and futile to try to do justice to a Vermeer in 3 hours.

Some paintings, like the above two and the "Pablo Picookie" below as well as the featured "Muncha Lisa" were scripted inclusions. Otherwise, it was fun to draft up a museum's worth of iconic imagery. 

Our cookie painters included: Rickey Boyd, Kirby Atkins, Ben Fosselman, and Kim Cranfield, along with Rhea Borzak, Taylor Blair, and Joel Gibbs. The Muppet Fans at Tough Pigs featured some of our paintings HERE (along with some half-baked art criticism) but you can check out a collection of mine below:

(this one is a cross between a Kandinsky and the opening credit chalk cookies)

(Matisse does "The Ladybugs' Picnic")

BONUS: Here's a look at my rough logo concepts for the Museum. Number 3 was clearly inspired by the Met's logo. Number 2 was the approved design.

STAR S'MORES _ Art Direction

The 45th Season of Sesame Street premiered last week and with it came the 2nd Season of COOKIE'S CRUMBY PICTURES, a show within the show that features Cookie Monster parodies of popular films.

It's a continuation of Magnetic Dreams Studios' work on various Sesame projects and another chance for us to do farcical recreations of movies that inspire us. None of them elicited more enthusiasm and creativity from our team than the Star Wars spoof, STAR S'MORES!

Below are some pieces of concept art and finished frames. As Art Director, I create the initial brainstorming pieces with Sesame and Creative Director, Rickey Boyd. 

Determining the nature of our dessert-based "Death Star."

Once it was confirmed that it would be mechanical, I incorporated baking-themed hardware (muffin trays, spoons, waffle irons) into the interior design.

From there, I'll do rough photo plate work-ups as reference for backgrounds that will be fully modeled by our CG dept. There's usually one per episode but we ended up with 4 for this one.

My rough concept for a graham cracker and kitchen cockpit for the "S'morellennium Falcon."

And... the final model by Brad Applebaum with additional lighting, color, and effects by our Compositors. 

Finally, I'm responsible for any of the 2D assets: photo plates, logos, graphics, and any puppeted characters.

A closer look at my 2D Tatooine and our cameos of a "Banthalupagus" and "R2-PU."

With stellar writing, performances, and source material to work from, these have been a blast to develop. We're currently in production on the recently-announced Avengers and Jurassic Park spoofs and here's a sneak preview of a few more upcoming episodes this season...

CRUMBY PICTURES _ Art Direction for Sesame Street

Long time, no blog.

I'm finally able to open the oven on CRUMBY PICTURES, the Cookie Monster movie trailer parody series that premiered on Season 44 ( ! ) of Sesame Street this week. Rather than a classroom curriculum of math or literacy, these shorts teach executive functions (self-control, patience, delayed gratification) by having the impetuous monster face personal challenges as the star of famous flicks (including Lord of the Rings, Life of Pi, and Hunger Games).

MAGNETIC DREAMS has worked with Sesame Workshop for years now (Elmo the Musical, shorts like Birdwalk Empire, Super Grover 2.0) creating computer-generated characters and backgrounds to accompany Muppet performances shot on green screen.

For Crumby Pictures, the goal was to make the production feel as much like the original movies as possible from little Easter Egg details to overall polish.

In classic Muppet fashion, the opening starts with a bang. A send-up of the Universal logo animation, one bite into a chocolate chip planet results in an exploding crumby debris field (rigged by Benjamin Rodriguez). Below is an alternate snazzier version of the logo I had proposed.

THE BISCOTTI KID (parody of The Karate Kid) was the first to air as a sneak preview on the internet. After the video are my logo and some still frames (Creative Director, Rickey Boyd and Comp Director, Rhea Borzak). A lot of great in-jokes in the script and I threw in some recognizable objects like the handheld drum from Karate Kid 2.

THE SPY WHO LOVED COOKIES (parody of both the old and new Bond movies, including the song "Cookie Fall") was essentially our pilot episode of the series. Most episodes contain a single full CG set (here, Ladyfinger's lair as concept art by me, final model by Brad Applebaum) and photocomp plates that I create and are thoroughly embellished by our compositing team.

Below are my backplate for the vista outside Ladyfinger's Lair and unused backgrounds for scenes in M's office and Q's lab that were cut for time.